LiveChathttps://www.livechatinc.com
Live Chat Software and Help Desk SoftwareWed, 19 Dec 2018 06:48:08 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.11Chatting as a Part of Building a Relationship with Customers – LiveChat Teamhttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/chatting-building-relationship-with-customers/
Tue, 18 Dec 2018 12:49:56 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=274583Being a LiveChat’s customer means you have visitors coming to your website, starting a conversation about the products you sell. But they are not the only visitors you have. It may happen, that someone from LiveChat team will visit your website and start a chat as well.
But why? You may ask.

Well, it’s not like we go to customers’ website to buy their products (at least not at the beginning). We ask about the LiveChat itself and how we can help customers use it better. Does it sound surprising, suspicious, nice? Probably all of that at the same time. But that’s what we do at LiveChat, and customers love it. Learn more about it.

Being a LiveChat’s customer means you have visitors coming to your website, starting a conversation about the products you sell. But they are not the only visitors you have. It may happen, that someone from LiveChat team will visit your website and start a chat as well.

But why? You may ask.

Well, it’s not like we go to customers’ website to buy their products (at least not at the beginning). We ask about the LiveChat itself and how we can help customers use it better. At that moment, they have a personal guide right on their chat. It’s their chance to ask questions they always wanted but never reached out to our Support Heroes.

Does it sound surprising, suspicious, nice? Probably all of that at the same time. But that’s what we do at LiveChat, and customers love it.

Why are we chatting on customers’ website?

We can’t help ourselves. That’s for starters. But we also believe it’s a great way to get customer’s attention and ask about their experience with the product.

Like any other company, we send lots of informational emails and surveys, asking how likely customers are to recommend our product and service. But we also think using our product to reach out to them is the best way to show how to use it best.

We’re like this unique website visitor that wants to help YOU, for a change.

For us, chatting is a big part of nurturing relationships with customers. Yet, we don’t chat for a chat’s sake. There’s a big goal we set up before reaching out to customers. For instance:

Building relationships with new–businesses – aka “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?” Reaching out to our new customers on their chat is a pleasant surprise. It’s a good base for a long relationship. At the beginning, customers have lots of questions in mind, regarding our product. But they don’t necessarily jump to our website asking our agents for help. We want to make it easier for them.

Reducing churn – aka “Stay with me.” Having satisfied customers is one of our biggest business goals. That’s why ask for an honest feedback regarding the product. If there’s something we can improve on our side, to help customers achieve their Desired Outcome, you can be sure we’ll try to deliver.

Upsell – aka “How you like me now?” We start a chat with customers that are longer with us, to talk about the use of LiveChat, and present more advanced features. Since these customers know the product well, they might want to know more advanced benefits and we’re happy to talk about them right off the bat.

Through these chats, we want to provide value for customers. Our bigger goal might not be accomplished, but we also have small goals to reach. Customers need to feel that we’re there to support them and guide them through our product. This kind of positive outcome is what matters the most. Sooner or later they will choose what is best for their business.

Customers reactions when we reach out on chat

Reaching out to customers is not a part of my daily tasks, but from time to time I also have a business to discuss with them. For example, when I create a case study with our customer and I need a fast response, I choose a chat instead of an email. This way I get the information immediately, and I don’t need to stop my writing.

Sometimes, I make a screenshot of their chat window, if it looks great, and that also requires starting a chat.

Even though I didn’t have much of these conversations, I got lucky to meet our one excited customer. Jake from the. Media Captain, when I introduced on chat: “Hi, I’m Olga from LiveChat” also surprised me with the answer. “Omg, someone from LiveChat is LiveChatting with me!” I loved this excitement. You know, the kind of excitement that no one gives a mobile company when they’re calling to ask about their service.

Chat is not invasive, but yes, sometimes customers are suspicious, so it’s our job to gain their trust and popularize this form of communication.

Context of the chat

From our perspective, the usage of LiveChat and its configuration is obvious. From the customer’s perspective, when they have only seen the application a few times, it’s not always easy. We try to remember that when gathering feedback and talking with LiveChat’s new clients.

We don’t have a ready to send replies and always try to give a detailed, balanced answer. Sometimes we get annoyed, especially when we bounce off a couple of chats, but we know it’s part of the job.

How do we win customers over with chatting

Background checking

Before writing to customers, with a previously mentioned goal in mind, our Success Managers do some background checking. The more we know about customers’ business, the more we can refer to their usage of LiveChat. And the more personalized questions we ask, the quicker we bond. LiveChat should be adjusted to the type of business you have. For example, in the travel industry – it’s good to ask customers if they need help with choosing a particular offer when they spend a lot of time your website. In the gambling industry, it’s worth to be available 24/7 for customers all over the world.

Starting a chat

The intro of the chat needs to be solid. We want to draw attention and to engage a customer into the conversation with us. When we ask questions that are too simple, customers can easily bail out. So we ask something that makes them think and want to reply.

The outcome of chatting on our customer’s website

We try different approaches. Sometimes it’s a direct one, like “Are you interested in upgrading your subscription plan?” and the other times it’s just “Hello… how do you like your experience with LiveChat?” We ask and see how customers react.

We follow small steps tactics to keep customers attention while not scaring them away by demanding too much.

We try to learn from each conversation. Not only to fix one customer’s problem but to keep a finger on the pulse. If we see a particular problem a couple of times, we try to find long–term solutions. We also use Amplitude to check if everything is working OK. If we had an awesome chat and promised a follow-up, but an afterward email isn’t sent, the whole communication process is less effective.

Back to you

What do you think about this kind of approach we have? Would you appreciate the direct support we give? Or you would rather be the person who reaches out first? Let us know!

]]>It’s Christmas Time – Best Christmas Ads of 2018https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/best-christmas-ads-2018/
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:36:58 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=259517The Christmas time is coming! Among us, there are two kinds of people: those who love Christmas and… Yes, Grinches. Grinches like to grumble about the holiday decorations and songs, about crowds of people, about the fact that they need to buy gifts, or because they hate cleaning. And me? I’m definitely the Christmas-lover! Singing “Last Christmas” since September and looking forward to the Wroclaw Christmas Market opening while listening to Frank Sinatra Christmas songs! This is the time of the year when I can feel like a child again and many people feel the same way. I’m writing this […]

Among us, there are two kinds of people: those who love Christmas and… Yes, Grinches. Grinches like to grumble about the holiday decorations and songs, about crowds of people, about the fact that they need to buy gifts, or because they hate cleaning.

And me? I’m definitely the Christmas-lover! Singing “Last Christmas” since September and looking forward to the Wroclaw Christmas Market opening while listening to Frank Sinatra Christmas songs! This is the time of the year when I can feel like a child again and many people feel the same way.

I’m writing this post for those who share my love for Christmas lights and mulled wine. After a couple of years break, I’m coming back with the best Christmas ads of 2018.

#1. Elton John Lewis

John Lewis is said to be the king of holiday commercials. Every consecutively year, their ads bring the company tons of views, shares, attention, and recognition as a result.

Two years ago, their #BusterTheBoxer gained almost 28 million views on YouTube and was the #1 ad of the year. In 2017, their #MozTheMonster gained “only” over 10 million views, but again, it was the #1 of the year.

The expectations for this year were, well, quite high. So what the company did? They hired Elton John (for £5million if you really need to know).

To be honest, I’m not sure what to think about it.

It’s already the #1 ad of this year (it’s the most mentioned and the second most shared ad of the year), but why? Is it the Elton John magic I don’t feel? Or is it just the lack of better ads this year (seriously, there are only a few good ads this year)?

If you like this commercial, let me know in the comments WHY. And meanwhile, check out Sir Elton John Lewis!

#2. Waitrose #TooGoodToWait

Before we get to my favorite ad from Waitrose, let’s see what’s the general concept behind it.

Too good to wait, right? We all get that.

So, Waitrose has published three episodes of #TooGoodToWait: “Concert” (the one above), “Mistletoe” and… yes, and “Fast Forward” I love the most. Just get ready for it.

Brilliant, right?!

There a couple of reasons why I love this ad: it’s really cheeky and might be seen as insolent for some. I loved it so much because (as you know), I don’t really like too serious, eye-watering ads.

But another reason is that Waitrose is the part of the John Lewis company what makes this video basically a self-roasting ad. Love it!

#3. Curry’s PC World: The Magic of Christmas Upgraded

Ever wondered how a Victorian England would look like if modern technology was invented earlier? Now you can see it with your own eyes!

Although I don’t really think that the technology can upgrade the real magic of Christmas, I do like to listen to Frank Sinatra so let’s say I’m OK with the message.

But I don’t think the Scrooge agree.

#4. Aldi – Kevin the Carrot and the Wicked Parsnip

If I told you that this holiday’s hero is the carrot, would you believe me?

You should!

Kevin the Carrot is a cute animated character who first appeared in the Aldi Christmas advert in 2016. Since then, Kevin stars in every holiday campaign they create, to the delight of his fans.

This year, Aldi also introduced Kevin’s evil opponent – the wicked Parsnip. At the same time (as every year), the company introduced to its stores the toy of Kevin. It went on sales on Nov the 22nd, it was completely sold out literally a couple of days later.

To make things even more Christmassy, Aldi also published an ad that mimics the Coca-Cola’s classic commercial and that lefts us on a… well, a cliff-hanger.

We’ll see what comes up next!

#5. #HeathrowBears

What is Christmas about? About family!

And what’s the best gift? Coming home, of course!

This simple message looks really cute in Heathrow’s holiday ad. For the third time we can watch how Edward and Doris Bair choose their family over… well, over the retirement village “Sunny Days.”

Maybe the real message of this ad says “buy Christmas gifts on Heathrow airport” (sounds a bit “last minute” to me), the whole ad is cute and I love Paul Young’s song!

Honorable mention: Iceland Foods – #NoPalmOilChristmas

OK, so when you hear that something was banned from tv, you immediately think “what’s wrong with it?” Don’t worry though, this ad was banned for breaching political ad rules only.

Iceland Foods partnered with Greenpeace to create a video about the destruction of the rainforest by palm oil growers and tells a story of a Rang-tan, an endangered orangutan whose home is destroyed. This messaging is in line with Iceland’s commitment to remove palm oil from its own-label food by the end of 2018.

Seriously, just how awesome is that? If you remember how much I admire Patagonia for their commitment to saving the environment, you won’t be surprised that I love this message too!

And the best thing is, this short animation blew the other ads in terms of shares and mentions, despite the fact it didn’t appear on TV.

Best Christmas ads of 2018

If you asked me how this year is doing if comes to Christmas ads, I can only say: it’s fine. Although there are nice ads (you’ve just seen them) I’m not really impressed by the rest of them.

We all know that Christmas is supposed to be about family, friends and good emotions (and gifts and food, but shhh), but some ads were just trying too hard to move us to tears. Others were just too loud and too crazy (but not good-crazy).

Summing up, this year was OK, but we want better ads in 2019. Do your best, retailers!

P.S. I also need to mention that I did like the KFC’s holiday ad. It’s nicely done, I do empathize with the chicken and I do like the Red Dead Redemption 2 reference. What I don’t like is that I have in mind that this likable bird would probably finish as a deep-fried chicken. Yikes!

P.S.2. Happy holidays, guys! And let me know in the comments which ads you liked the most (and what is so special about Elton John Lewis ;).

]]>Holiday Email Subject Lines to Woo Your On the Go Subscribershttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/holiday-email-subject-lines/
Fri, 07 Dec 2018 08:22:07 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=260396Imagine, while you are walking back home from a hard day’s work, you meet two strangers at different times, asking for help individually. First guy rants “Hey you! Come here and help me!” while the other starts with “Hey mate, please help me?” Whom would you be more inclined to help? Naturally the second guy, right? How you start your conversation contributes to how much the other person is inclined to engage with it. Same is with email subject lines. In a flood of emails (especially during holiday season), your subscriber will open your emails solely based on how relevant […]

Imagine, while you are walking back home from a hard day’s work, you meet two strangers at different times, asking for help individually. First guy rants “Hey you! Come here and help me!” while the other starts with “Hey mate, please help me?” Whom would you be more inclined to help?

Naturally the second guy, right? How you start your conversation contributes to how much the other person is inclined to engage with it.

Same is with email subject lines. In a flood of emails (especially during holiday season), your subscriber will open your emails solely based on how relevant your subject line is, to what they are currently looking for.

How email subject lines contribute to email campaign performance

While many subscribers do open an email owing to the brand loyalty they have for the brand, the open rates of any email rely heavily on the subject line and the preheader text.

In fact, 69% of email recipients have reported emails as SPAM solely based on the subject line and 47% have opened email based on subject line alone.

This means, right off the bat, subscribers make a judgment about how engaging the email copy will be for them. Being a fundamental part in the structure of a successful email campaign, a subject line needs to act as the cliffhanger in a story, which is carried forward by the email copy.

The better it is in raising curiosity, the better is the subject line’s contribution to open rates.

Now that we have learned the importance of a subject line, let’s move forward to observe how to optimize your holiday email subject lines to woo your “on-the-go” mobile subscribers.

How to woo the “on-the-go” subscribers

Holiday is the time to be with family and close friends, so most of your subscribers are going to check out their emails on their mobile devices.

Owing to the small screen space and different technical specifications (as a camera, speakers, etc.) in mobile devices as compared to desktop, you need to make sure that your subject lines are optimized for mobile.

Count your words like you do your blessing

Desktop email clients display 70 chars of the subject line, but a mobile device will clip the subject line at 30 chars (Android) and 41 chars (iPhone). So, you need to be stingy and make sure the first 30 chars are interesting, precise and have a clear message.

One good way is to ask a question to peak subscribers’ attention. E.g. “Trouble converting SEO traffic? This is probably why.”

Can’t be stingy? Next tip is for you!

Preheader is subject lines 2.0

While fitting all your intended message in 30 chars may not be possible every time, you can always utilize the preheader to convey the rest.

While desktop users can only see the preheader text in Gmail webmail, it is visible in every mobile email client such as iOS mail, Samsung Mail and Gmail Mobile.

Create an urgency

Holidays is the biggest shopping time of the year; and to avoid missing out, your subject line needs to create urgency. Using keywords such as “Save” or “Free delivery” is observed to generate 81% higher click rates for ecommerce industries.

Use Emojis

Emojis have come a long way from being just a colon with brackets to represent a smiley to full-fledged lingo for “new-age” communications. Stand out from a sea of words by using emojis in your subject lines. Interestingly, by using emoji in their email lines, 56% of brands observed a higher open rate.

Quick tip: While most ESPs have a glossary of commonly used emojis, you can copy relevant emoji from here and paste it wherever needed. Additionally, you can see how the same emoji displays on different devices also.

5 Holiday subject lines being used by different brands for different holidays

It is safe to assume that you are now looking for ways to implement the aforementioned tips in your email campaigns. Now that we have covered how to craft your subject lines, here are some cherry-picked holiday email subject lines.

Halloween

Say BOO and you’ll miss it… – Cotton On Kids

Something wicked from Fortnum’s – Fortnum and Mason

Open… if you dare – GoldieBlox

We’ve Conjured Up These Limited Edition Tees! – Ivory Ella

Better than candy – Bliss spa

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving got you stressed not anymore – Whole Foods Market

No need to thank us for these exclusive deals. – Banana Republic

This Thanksgiving, Delicious Is Simple… – Sur La Table

Gobble ‘Til You Wobble! – Chin Up Apparel

A Blue Ming Thanksgiving! – Alchemy Fine Home

Black Friday & Cyber Monday

30-50% OFF EVERYTHING. Black Fri-YAY comes early! – Cotton On

Cyber Monday Preview Doorbusters. We Saved the Best For Last. – Villeroy and Boch

7 Subject line best practices to boost open rates

While subject lines are easy to craft from the message in your email copy, following few of the best practices followed in the email marketing industry can help you craft them better.

Tip #1: Write with the Audience and Goal in mind. Although this is a no brainer, but one of the common mistakes email marketers make is not conveying the goal of the email in the subject line.

e.g.: “My biggest sale of the year is coming.” — Online cosmetic retailer Frank Body conveys the goal of the email clearly with this subject line

Tip #2: Add personalization in the form of past purchase reference or at least ‘first name’ in your subject line. Holidays is the time to be close to your dear ones. Show some love to your subscribers as well by adding a touch of personalization.

e.g.: “Go Madbury Kevin” — Adding the first name here in the subject line, Cadbury raised the curiosity level.

Tip #4: Show value in your subject line. Hint what your subscriber will get inside by opening your email, so as to heighten interest. Ask a question in the subject line, the answer of which could be found inside the email.

e.g.: “Looking for Your Toy & Game Destination This Summer?” — The answer is implied in the question of this subject line by Barnes & Noble itself

Tip #5: Always A/B test your subject lines. No two people like the same thing under the same circumstances.

Tip #6: Write your subject lines at the end. This way you have a clear idea of what your email communicates and help you condense it into a subject line.

Tip #7: Tell a joke. There is nothing like starting a conversation that begins with laughter.

Staying on the subject of subject lines

At the end, it all boils down to getting good open rates and having some fun on the way. So be creative with your holiday email subject lines and always check them on mobile devices to make sure it is not broken at an awkward point.

We hope these email subject line tips and resources help you to feel more confident and understand the ways to woo your “on-the-go” subscribers.

]]>Amazon vs. eBay: Which Is Better For Selling Online?https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/amazon-ebay-selling-online/
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 08:21:26 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=260182Gone are the days where you need a brick and mortar store to thrive in the retail business. Online marketplaces provide the best alternative and are perfect platforms for eCommerce entrepreneurs. By registering as a seller in any one of these online marketplaces, e-commerce business owners can access an unprecedented number of potential customers. The largest and most popular of these marketplaces are Amazon or eBay. They are the two pioneer companies of ecommerce and are usually found in almost any country. The question here is, with all the other marketplace options, why choose either Amazon or eBay? Why Amazon? […]

Gone are the days where you need a brick and mortar store to thrive in the retail business. Online marketplaces provide the best alternative and are perfect platforms for eCommerce entrepreneurs.

By registering as a seller in any one of these online marketplaces, e-commerce business owners can access an unprecedented number of potential customers. The largest and most popular of these marketplaces are Amazon or eBay.

They are the two pioneer companies of ecommerce and are usually found in almost any country. The question here is, with all the other marketplace options, why choose either Amazon or eBay?

Why Amazon?

The web has become saturated with various ecommerce platforms. However, there are still many reasons why you should consider choosing Amazon. It’s difficult for new ecommerce stores to gain popularity all on their own. Selling on Amazon gives you access to their network.

Amazon is the third most valuable company in the world and it is still growing at a rapid rate. Amazon is one of the best tools for any aspiring e-commerce business.

Positioning your business with one of the most successful companies of our generation might be a good idea.

Online sellers that persevere and strive to do their best can thrive on Amazon. The Amazon platform is famous for its unparalleled customer service. Online shoppers flock to Amazon because of this fact.

Sellers need to emulate Amazon’s commitment to being customer-centric.

If you have complete faith in the quality of your products then Amazon is the best marketplace for you.

Selling cheap, low-quality merchandise is detrimental to any e-commerce business. If you are on the fence about what you’re selling then you need to first fix your product sourcing.

To succeed in e-commerce, you need first to fix your product sourcing process. Only offer customers high-quality merchandise. Selling only quality products to customers will give you one less thing to worry about.

Amazon Pros:

Selling on Amazon will be easy for sellers that are customer service oriented. Being associated with Amazon will instantly grant credibility and an extensive network to your business.

To succeed on Amazon you need to adopt their philosophy of always focusing on customer satisfaction. Perfect customer service is what Amazon customers are looking for, and that is what you need to give them.

Do that and your e-commerce business would be a tremendous success.

Membership Tiers

It is free to register and sell products on Amazon. There are two membership options designed to either fit a startup or a company. Each seller needs to analyze what membership tier would be perfect for them.

Amazon individual seller account

Free to sign up but there is a $.99 charge per sale of every product you do sell, and Amazon also charges a referral fee. The fee depends on the product category but has an average of 15% of the sales price. With this type of account, there is a monthly limit of 40 products.

Amazon pro seller account

An Amazon pro seller account is for startups, large companies or serious sellers. There is a monthly fee of $39.99 which allows sellers unlimited sales.

A pro seller account gains access to the full scope of Amazon’s inventory management tools. These tools provide sellers all they need to manage their online store. Make sure to master these tools such as Amazon’s sales coach.

Amazon Prime

About two-thirds of all Amazon customers enrolled in Amazon Prime. Customers love Amazon Prime, first because of the free shipping. Amazon Prime customers get free 2 days shipping with all their purchases on Amazon.

Usually, Amazon Prime customers only buy products that are available on Prime. Take note that not all Amazon sellers have their products available on Prime. Only fulfilled by Amazon sellers have their products listed on Amazon Prime.

If a product is not available on Prime, there is a very slim chance that Prime customers would buy it. Only thirty percent of Amazon customers are not enrolled in Prime. They may decide to buy products from non-FBA sellers.

Amazon FBA

Any Amazon seller can sign up for the Fulfilled By Amazon program. Imagine not having to prepare each product shipment yourself. The whole process of picking, packing, packaging and shipping takes a lot of time and effort.

Time is money, and this program helps entrepreneurs like never before. The FBA program allows sellers to outsource daily operations of their e-commerce business.

Amazon staff will be in charge of the day to day operations. The FBA program is a great tool to help budding entrepreneurs leverage their time better.

Easy Returns for customers

Customers enjoy shopping on Amazon because if there is a problem with the product, they can return it. Getting a replacement product or even a refund is already expected. Amazon’s culture for customer satisfaction makes it easier and stress free for shoppers.

Making Amazon customers unhappy may lead to bigger problems. Too many detractors and your account will get suspended or even banned from the platform.

Customer Satisfaction and Communication

When customers shop on Amazon, they already expect stellar customer service. Online shoppers feel safe on Amazon. They will order from unknown sellers even if the product does not have any reviews. Only because the product is being sold on Amazon.

In case the customer is not happy with the product they can email the seller to let them know of any issues. If that doesn’t work they can with Amazon customer service to make it right. Most Amazon sellers will do everything in their power to make a customer happy.

Add customers emails to your email marketing list. Send them discount coupons for purchases on your eCommerce store outside Amazon. There you can start a live chat session and ask potential customers what it is they are looking to buy. Live chat can be a powerful tool when used correctly.

Amazon Cons:

There are some negative aspects of selling on Amazon. It comes with the territory, and these are things you need to deal with to make it in this marketplace.

Seller Fees

Amazon allows sellers to reach millions of customers in exchange for some fees. All sellers have to pay the referral fee. The fee depends on the product category but has an average of 15% for every sale.

FBA sellers also pay a fulfillment fee per transaction as well. The amount charged depends on the size and weight of the product.

Product pirates

Amazon allows sellers to use a catalog when listing products. The catalog makes listing your product quick and easy. Many Amazon sellers sell the same product. Using a general catalog to register that particular product makes it simpler.

This feature is there to make listing products more convenient for sellers. It also allows other sellers to ride on the success of the product you initially sourced. They order the same exact product from China to mimic your success. This is where private label comes in. It provides sellers the exclusive rights to sell their own privately manufactured product.

Why eBay?

The eBay platform was an auction site that ushered in a new era dubbed e-commerce. In 1995 eBay popped up along with a million other .com’s but unlike the other eBay made selling online a reality. This platform was originally used for selling used goods. It did evolve to market new products later on.

Ebay Pros:

Online entrepreneurs like selling products on eBay. The seller fees are lower and sellers have more control of the product returns they choose to accept.

Sell used items

eBay is a popular auction site that used to specialize in selling pre-loved items. Now 80% of the merchandise sold on the eBay platform is new products.

eBay is still the go-to site for used items at a very affordable price. The platform is also famous for selling high priced items. The most expensive of which was a private jet that sold for $4.9 million.

Lower seller fees

Selling on eBay incurs fewer fees than Amazon. The final value fee is akin to Amazon’s referral fee. eBay’s final value fee is only 8% of the products final sale price. If the product is $50 and below, add another 5% for items above $50. That’s a total of 13% which is better average than Amazons 15% referral fee.

eBay Plus

eBay’s answer to Amazon Prime. The premium membership allows eBay shoppers to enjoy features seen on Amazon Prime. Such as free guaranteed 2-day shipping for all purchases. Plus free product returns within thirty days.

Sellers need to pay $49 per year to register for eBay plus. The benefits definitely outweigh the cost. Sellers receive a 15% discount on selling fees. Not to mention better product ranking for their products.

Ebay Cons:

Like any marketplace, eBay has its own set of negatives as well. Take these into account when making your decision or learn to adapt and work around it.

No Fulfillment service

If you have more personal time to dedicate to preparing each order then eBay could work for you. Doing all the picking, packing and shipping takes some time. Since eBay has no fulfillment service, your company will need to do all the work for each order.

This could work if you only have a few orders coming in per day. But, if your business gets dozens of orders then you can choose to hire someone to process each order for you. If not, you will end up wasting most of your day preparing packages for shipping.

Payment restrictions

eBay requires all payments to go through PayPal. That is the only way payments processing system on the eBay platform. If an eBay shopper has a PayPal account then they do have the option of using that.

Shoppers can still use their debit or credit car but would need to enter payment information to a PayPal. Which would still process the payment via PayPal. There is a PayPal fee of $.45 and another charge of 2.9% of the transaction amount.

Chaotic product listings

Since eBay does not have a general product catalog as Amazon does. Listing products can be somewhat chaotic. In any marketplace, some sellers make it their business selling counterfeit products.

For every item that you post on eBay; you need to create a separate product listing. There are so many product listings of the same product. Sellers will have trouble trying to compete for the lowest price with competitors.

Time To Decide

Both Amazon and eBay have their own pros and cons. Each marketplace can be useful for your business. Depending on your preferences as a seller you can choose one over the other.

If at all possible, why not post your products on both marketplaces. See for yourself which one will work better for you. Try taking advantage of the best of both worlds.

Experiment with external ad campaigns. Check which will have a better ROI and review to see which marketplace gives you more sales.

If you want to focus on one marketplace, then you need to weigh the factors and decide. It also depends which marketplace is more popular in the country you’re in.

]]>7 Signs Your Digital CX Strategy is About to Backfirehttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/digital-cx-strategy/
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 11:00:59 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=253925In today’s world, rapid technological advancement and brand recall values are constantly impacting the various sectors. This makes catering to the digital consumers with unhindered customer support and service all the more essential. Thus, it is imperative that the consumer relationship managers and representatives identify all prospective challenges and signs indicating poor CX strategies, resulting in a downward sales graph. The informative blog delves into the various facets of a faulty customer experience strategy and drafts constructive actionable points with real-life examples and ideas, essential for brand consistency and conversion rates.

Keeping your customers unhappy for long is bound to affect your business in a negative way. Do you know that U.S. companies lose over $62 billion annually, simply because of poor customer support? You might find it quite alarming that just after one negative experience, 51% of customers are not likely to deal with that company again.

If you are wondering why the business graphs and progress reports of your company are not really impressive, there might be a poor or less competitive digital CX strategy at work. However, it’s never too late for anybody to learn from the mistakes and make a comeback worth appreciating.

If you want your business to climb the stairs of ultimate success and recognition, then it is time to pay attention to the seven alarming signs of a poor CX strategy which is keeping your business away from all the attention it deserves.

Take some time out to read what’s included in the list. Recognize all loopholes and rectify the same with a smile of optimism on your face.

#1. Employees are not in sync with each other

Communication is one big word when it comes to an organization’s success. Especially when the context is digital customer experience, you cannot ignore the importance of an open-ended conversation and transparency in customer support. Lack of team education among the employees belonging to different strata of an organization might give rise to confusion among consumer support executives, creating hurdles in terms of delivering solutions and conveying messages.

Actionable point: You should consider educating the office team with consumer insights, market knowledge and a clear idea of their individual job role. For example, Amazon has recently been ranked highest in overall customer satisfaction according to a survey conducted by ForeSee.

This is probably because of the fact that the organizational communication between the employees is clear, concise and seamless. As a result, they are able to serve customers better, with proper insights, background knowledge, and a clear idea of how things work.

#2. There’s a dip in customer retention rate

A dip in the customer retention rate can potentially be another indication of a poor digital CX strategy and an alarming sign that you are completely messing with it. Remember, while running a business, you may afford to do anything and everything under the sky, but losing your clients is a big No-No.

Every time you are failing to retain your client, you’re missing out on the opportunity to generate the coveted annual revenue for your company. Now, in case you are experiencing that your consumers are losing interest in your services and products, and opting for your contemporaries present in the market, you might consider improving and working on the CX strategies for a change.

Actionable point: First things first, you got to figure out if there’s something wrong with the present team of customer support executives. You should try addressing and acknowledging all grievances and negative comments posted by your clients and come up with quick solutions to resolve all issues.

According to a survey, it has been found that automobile giants like Toyota and Honda have the best customer service. No wonder, Toyota has also been included in the Forbes’ list of companies having the best customer services. The moment you start interacting with your consumers and help them with the answers they are looking for, the level of trust and brand reliability among them will eventually reach its zenith.

#3. You’re always in a hurry to reply

Replying without adhering to your customer’s query is not a good sign. I mean, it’s cool that you are active and ready with an answer, but not cool enough if you are doing it without even listening to your customers. You got to pay attention to your customers and listen carefully to what they have to say. It is not wise to answer before knowing the query of the person on the other end of the chat box.

Actionable point: First things first, you should learn how to become a good listener. Since you are mostly interacting with customers via digital platforms, it is important for you to take note of each and every query made, and questions asked. Luckily all conversations with customers that happen in LiveChat are stored in the archives, so you can come back to them anytime you want.

Customer service agents also have to take calls. In order to manage multiple calls, they tend to end calls faster with hardly a minute of conversation with the clients. But, that won’t really work anymore.

Take a look at Google. Have you ever seen that the search engine is making its users wait for long or making things complicated for the consumers to conduct online research? No wonder it has an ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) score of 82. Moreover, customers are also of the opinion that the search engine has the most accurate results.

#4. Social media likes and shares are your biggest concern

It’s a good thing that your product and services are getting the desired social media exposure. However, things might not tend to remain this good for long if all that you are worried about is the number of likes and how many times a particular promotional content gets shared.

You should also think of all the necessary strategies and backend supports that are imperative for favorable digital customer experience.

Actionable point: Especially for small businesses, social media likes and shares will come much later, as the primary point of concern should always revolve around real time customer satisfaction. This reminds of a beautiful quote used by Prof. Davis Arthur, an online educator and essay help expert from Chicago “One good customer support is equivalent to acquiring a thousand “likes” on Facebook”.

#5. Taking fewer complaints as a sign of success

Are fewer complaints making you glad? Beware! It can simply be the other way round. Receiving fewer complaints might not be a sign of excellent customer service. In today’s world of fierce competition, people hardly have the time to keep commenting about your products and services every single time. The responsibility is entirely yours to figure things out based on real-time findings, and not merely on the basis of silly assumptions and guess works.

Actionable Point: As a part of the actionable point, you might choose to keep track of all customer interactions made from time to time, and maintain a well-documented record of the same for the purpose of quality assurance. You need to plan things in a way that can encourage consumers to leave their feedback more frequently.

As per Mr. Adam Paul, Sr. client relationship manager and assignment helper says: “Introducing credit points and bonus schemes for the users commenting on the services and products offered may motivate them to give more feedback.”

After all, acquiring and analyzing customer feedback is certainly one critical metric that determines rewarding CX.

#6. Over-reliance on resolving queries

You may be fast and super active in resolving client issues and providing them with a solution. But, are you really focusing on the quality? This is one question you should always ask yourself before being too confident about it. Being faster in attending customer queries do not necessarily indicate the fact that you are actually resolving the issue with quality assurances.

Actionable point: The idea is to introduce value-driven digital CX strategies, so that the entire approach can add some value in the form of takeaway insights for your customers. For example, Nike has moved beyond being an international shoe brand. It has come up with an entire world of service add-ons and tools to support consumers in fulfilling their athletic aspirations.

The brand apparently tells stories about lifestyle and achievements, which is way more than just a product. Are you getting a drift of it? Things are no more limited to resolving issues faster. Qualitative customer support and service is the newest wave of change.

#7. Lack of willingness to explore enough digital CX tools

If you are clinging to that one customer service and communication tool, and not really willing to explore new things, then you will definitely mess things up with your digital CX. Insisting upon using that one particular resource or tool may leave you with limited scope to cope up with what’s trending. So, it is always a better choice to monitor things closely and train customer service executives to use the essential tools imperative for an ideal customer service experience.

Actionable Point: There are multiple advanced digital CX resources and tools left unexplored. From LiveChat’s Knowledgebase tool so customers can easily find answers inside the app, to powerful CMS application like Adobe Experience Manager helping in managing content and building assets for mobile, web and social media channels, there’s a sea of software to help you ensure an advanced and more functional digital CX.

Try to figure out resources and latest digital CX tools you haven’t explored yet. Start using them if you feel that the resources have the potential to resolve the challenges more effectively.

Learn from the mistakes and improve your digital CX

The digitization of marketing and product selling has perhaps changed the order of business, making people more tech-savvy. However, to look at things from the perspective of a marketer, it is imperative for an individual to keep good vibes coming in. A consistent, constructive and value-driven digital CX will always help you to up your game and make your brand the talk of the town.

Now that you know everything about the nitty-gritty of digital CX and the things you were doing wrong all this while, it’s time to learn from the mistakes and fix the issues at the earliest.
Good luck!

]]>Dos and Don’ts of Building a Customer Service Chatbot: LiveChat Case Studyhttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/customer-service-chatbot/
Tue, 27 Nov 2018 09:00:59 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=255248If you take a look at Google Trends to see when the phrase “chatbot” was trending, you will quickly notice that the interest started to grow in 2016 to reach its peak in September 2017. Some people will say it’s a coincidence, but I will say that there are no coincidences! September 2017 was the month when our Support Heroes’ team decided to implement chatbots into their workflow for the first time. It was the time when our R&D team has created the prototype of our ChatBot product (we called it BotEngine back then). The idea of this app was […]

If you take a look at Google Trends to see when the phrase “chatbot” was trending, you will quickly notice that the interest started to grow in 2016 to reach its peak in September 2017.

Some people will say it’s a coincidence, but I will say that there are no coincidences! September 2017 was the month when our Support Heroes’ team decided to implement chatbots into their workflow for the first time.

It was the time when our R&D team has created the prototype of our ChatBot product (we called it BotEngine back then). The idea of this app was to make it easy to create a chatbot, even if you don’t have programming skills.

Soon, it turned out that the greatest challenge was not to set up a bot but to implement it into our daily work. Here’s how we built our customer service chatbots, what we’ve learned, and – yes – what went wrong.

Step one: the preparation stage

Let me just say that when you decide to use your chatbot app while it’s still a prototype, you should be prepared for problems.

Our first problem was that ChatBot was still a rough app. It didn’t look the same way it does now and still had a lot of bugs to discover. (But to be honest, we were quite happy about that. If you want your new product to get to the mature stage quickly, you need to test it, fix it and test it once again!).

The second, more severe problem was that there was no simple ChatBot-LiveChat integration. Our Support Heroes had to work on a workaround that at first didn’t have all functionalities the application initially had.

It looked like apart from just implementing a chatbot, our support team would also test the app.

But don’t get me wrong, we were really excited to work with this app. You never know what you’d learn, right? We also knew it would be a great opportunity to battle-test our bots.

But as much as we felt like the customer service chatbot pioneers, we already knew what problems we want it to solve.

We wanted to implement a bot that would filter spam and chats from confused visitors (you wouldn’t believe how many people start a chat to find a new girlfriend or to simply troll you!). We wanted to set it up in a way so that only people with real problems and product questions are transferred to our Support Heroes, while the bot takes care of visitors who reached our website by mistake.

Another thing we wanted to achieve is to help our website visitors easily find information about LiveChat. Our bot was supposed to respond to common questions, send links website visitors were often asking for and help them to start a trial.

Then, when we had our goals, we were ready to make the first footprints in the fresh snow.

The Halloween version of Richard, our lead generation bot

Step two: customer service chatbot training

Having the masterplan in our heads, we started the chatbot training. None of our live chat agents had previous experience with chatbots, so it was a challenge for support leaders to introduce it in a fun, educational way.

To do that, we’ve created a three-step plan for chatbot implementation. Every single Support Hero had to:

Go through the ChatBot onboarding to get familiar with the application and bot building basics,

Implement the chatbot on a Facebook fanpage and once done, send a link to the fanpage to their leader.

And all our Heroes followed this plan.

You might think that there’s a lot of time and effort put into the whole team training. It might seem that it’s much more efficient to train two or three people and then ask them to keep an eye on your chatbots.

However, there were certain reasons (or let’s call it straight: benefits) that made us go with this decision. We understood that when every person from your team is familiar with chatbot building:

it makes them skilled enough to solve chatbot problems instead of sending them to someone else,

it makes them more engaged in the whole project (and you get a lot of valuable feedback thanks to that),

it makes them more motivated and willing to broaden their knowledge (because that’s the result of trusting people and giving them creative freedom at work).

Last but not least, let’s not forget that our support team was the first line of ChatBot app testing! They had to be able to spot, identify and report bugs. Also for that reason, every amount of time spent on their training was worth it. We even have our chatbot specialist now (hooray for Janek!).

A Messenger chat with our Facebook bot

Step three: setting up chatbots

After everyone from the support has passed the test, the team started to gather most common customer questions and responses. It took us almost 3 weeks, but that exercise gave us a list of 250 frequently asked questions from our customers.

When the list was ready, we uploaded all these questions and responses to a chatbot scenario, hoping that it would solve most of our repeatable cases. Boosting the existing scenario took us thenext two months.

Currently, we have three chatbots:

A lead generation bot, Richard: explains what LiveChat is, shows pricing and product features, encourages to start a free trial. Last month, Richard has earned us 262 trial subscriptions.

A spam filtering Facebook chatbot: before we’ve implemented this bot, 97% Facebook messages were spammy. Now, this bot qualifies visitors and when they do want to talk about LiveChat-related topics, it transfers them to a real agent.

Results of the project

We’ve achieved awesome results. Here are some numbers for the last 90 days:

Richard brought us 535 trial accounts,

All our bots closed 36,886 cases without the need to transfer visitors to human agents,

Bots took care of 28,6% of the live chat communication,

All bot conversations lasted all together over 5258 hours (to handle all these chats, we’d need to hire additional 19 support agents for two months!)

We also discovered an interesting dependence.

If you remember our Customer Service Report 2018, you might remember that the longer a chat lasted, the happier was a customer in the result. The reason for that is quite simple: people who got engaged in chat, and see that their questions are being answered, are staying longer on the website and give higher rates.

When we’ve checked the average duration of bot conversations, this dependence occurred again: while the average chat duration was 8,5 minutes, the ones that received good ratings lasted over 11 minutes.

Funny fact: to handle all chats that were handled by our bots for three months, we’d need to hire additional 19 support agents for two months!

Our general chat satisfaction is 65%, which could be better.The reason for such score is the fact that our bots often didn’t understand the questions our customers were typing. Now, we have customer response suggesting, so this score should improve soon.

But since we have customer response suggesting: customer just clicks on the quick reply and bot immediately recognizes the response. This should improve the score!).

As we also discovered, bots turned out to be super-helpful in case of introducing new app sections or a refreshed design. In such cases, Monica bot was dealing with all additional inquiries from customers, wanting to learn more about the new features within the app.

Dos and don’ts of building a customer service chatbot

If you asked us if the implementation of a chatbot to our customer service workflow paid off, I’d say: yes. I think that the results we achieved during last year are amazing (especially if we keep in mind that we started as bot-rookies).

We made mistakes but at the same time, we’ve learned a lot about chatbot configuration principles.

Here are some of the most important ones:

Do: decide about the purpose of your chatbot. You need to know precisely what problem you want your bot to solve.

Do: start with small cases with only several possible interactions (e.g. gather data of your website visitors, make the bot ask lead qualification questions).

Do: add possible scenarios time after time and slowly improve them (analyze your archived chats and think about what could go better).

Don’t: use open questions, your bot is doing the best job in case of “yes,” “no” responses.

Do: give your team time to get familiar with chatbots and their creation process, it will pay off.

Do: make a good use of rich messages. Add to your scenarios buttons with actions, product carousels and suggest customer responses (because it’s easier for your customer to click than to type).

Do: create a nice fallback. Fallback is a response a chatbot sends when it doesn’t understand what is a customer saying. For example, it can say: “Sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you rephrase it or let me know if you want to transfer to a human agent?” Monitoring how often it occurs will help you to identify scenario gaps.

Do: measure your bot’s effectiveness. Recently, the ChatBot team has released new feature that allows your bot to tag its conversations and complete goals. For example, if your bot solved a problem, it can tag the chat as “support.” If it was able to close a sale, it can mark the chat with a goal.

As you see, the whole process wasn’t easy (I mentioned that we were pioneers, right?), but as a result, the whole experiment paid off. Now, we have three customer service chatbots that are far from being perfect, but already bring us a lot of benefits.

Thanks to help from our well-trained, experienced team of ChatBot Super Heroes, one day we’ll get to chatbot perfection. I’m sure of it.

And if you think that your support team would also benefit from adding a chatbot to its workflow, try our ChatBot. You can test the app during the 14-day trial and you’ll have this luck to learn from tons of educational materials created thanks to our Support Heroes’ questions.

Working in any eCommerce, sales or SaaS organization, this is the only word that gets thrown around the company like a stuck record. Not only is generating leads the lifeblood of any organization but converting them means that everyone in your company can still keep their job.

In this article, I am going to take a practical look at what I am currently doing in my organization to generate leads that are 82% guaranteed to convert to sales. I am currently working with an online insurance site, where leads are basically the holy grail of the organization.

So, I am going to provide you with some insight into how to generate more leads.

Working in any eCommerce, sales or SaaS organization, this is the only word that gets thrown around the company like a stuck record. Not only is generating leads the lifeblood of any organization but converting them means that everyone in your company can still keep their job.

In this article, I am going to take a practical look at what I am currently doing in my organization to generate leads that are 82% guaranteed to convert to sales. I am currently working with an online insurance site, where leads are basically the holy grail of the organization.

And boy, they can be tricky to generate.

Our problem is that we are working in an industry that is not an easy sell. Insurance is not a sexy product, and getting people to even click on the website, let alone become a lead is a challenge in itself.

So, I am going to provide you with some insight into how to generate more leads.

Who’s your customer?

The first thing we have to do is determine who exactly our customer actually is!

Yes, knowing your target audience with metrics such as LSM, demographics etc is important, but I need to actually know more! What are their interests and values?

What is important to them and what are they spending their money on? In this way, I can create a campaign or content that directly speaks to them, and if they come through to our site, it will be because they are genuinely interested in our product.

Through some extensive research and a lot of trial and error, we moved past the traditional LSM concepts and started hitting clients during their life stages.

The younger client, buying their first car, and getting insurance for the first time has vastly different interests than the mid-30-year-old who is starting a family, purchasing their first house and upgrading the car. I made sure that I created different campaigns for each life stage, and so far, it is working!

Ask your current customers questions. Find out what it is they want, what they love about you, information about themselves, what they feel you need to improve on and what drew them to your brand. The more you ask, the better you will be able to profile your perfect customer so that you can target them.

I tend to do a lot of surveys with our customers. I include them in our weekly mailers that are packed with great articles. I slip a sneaky survey in, which only contains one question with multiple choice answers.

I usually relate it to the articles in the mailer and with the simplicity of the survey, I have found an increase of 68% in responses from the surveys!

The latest question I have asked was related to the recent huge hike in fuel and what the reader was going to do to save money during the month. The response was overwhelming, with most answers pointing in the reduction of luxury goods and frequency of eating out.

Who is coming to your website?

This is super helpful information to have about who is actually interested in your site, and who is spending time on it. Once you have an overview of potential customers, you can contact them with more information about yourself and convert them to a paying customer.

Quality over quantity

With the above knowledge in hand, now it is about turning traffic into leads. Driving traffic to your site is one thing, and if you can do it successfully, then great! But how much of that traffic is that of actual potential customers?

With targeted advertising and accurate messages, you can speak directly to the type of customer you really want on your site!

If I am doing social posts like Facebook, I am using the information that I have gathered about their interests and values and creating a campaign that talks directly to that. I, therefore, know that the person who clicks on that and comes through to the page is genuinely interested.

I have found that this does take a lot more time. Campaigns have to be personalized, groups have to be created, content refined, and customer groupings have to be hand-picked. But the result is 68% and above conversion rate on these ads!

Remember I chatted about the different life stages earlier? We created a campaign-related solely to the younger driver and first-time car owner. We approached a local, popular artist who has just been sponsored by Volkswagen and drives the brand new Golf. The campaign centers around responsible choices, and making sure you are covered. Despite being a successful artist, he is not driving the latest high-end sports car and has opted for a more sensible option. The car is also one of the most popular in the age group, so the campaign fit!

Are the lines of communication open?

What we have to understand, is that just because we are an online company, doesn’t mean that all of our customers work solely online. Some customers prefer chat, some prefer Whatsapp, some prefer a good old telephone call and we make sure that all of those options are open for the customer to let us know that they are interested in our products.

One way that I have started engaging with customers, as well as potential customers, is by sending push notifications. All of the subscribers in my database, whether customers or not, get notifications straight to their mobiles.

These can get really tricky though, so you have to make sure that they not only add value and are relevant, but that the receiver can easily opt-out. These simple rules have increased leads by 12% in the organization as you never know what piece of content will reach the right person at the right time!

Whether it be a news article or an explanatory video, it would need to be of interest to the audience!

The second project that I have recently implemented is a live chat system on the site. This is just one more option for those customers who do not trust filling out the forms with their personal information and who are not interested in getting a phone call.

Here, they can chat to a real person online. We make sure that they are aware that all of their data and information is protected in the chat. The system works as they prompted to ask a few questions first in order to generate trust, and we thereafter take it into the quoting process.

How much information are you getting from your customer?

Forms are vital on your page to capture customer information. What makes it interesting for us, is just how much of the form site visitors fill out. I find, that the more the form is completed, the more interested they are in becoming a customer.

It does become tricky, however, when you have over three pages of forms to fill out that are asking some very personal information. We notice that on average, we get a 15% form abandonment on the first form and 29% upwards on the next two forms. Those that make it all the way to the last form, are genuinely interested customers.

So, what have we done to reduce the bounce rate, and increase the leads? The first step I took was to offer both “Do the quote myself” or “Rather call me” options on the landing page. 60% of people will then click “Do the quote myself.”

Without the option of “call me back”, those people who are simply not comfortable with sharing personal information would simply just drop off. 40% is a huge drop off!

We were still finding that the drop off was extremely high as soon as they saw just how much personal information they still had to fill out, so we changed up our tactics again. In between the basic personal information, we snuck in the email address and telephone number sections, so that even if they did drop off, they could still be contactable.

Directly after, and in the section of car details, we included the registration number, so that we can get just a bit more information from them should they bounce in the last stages.

If you are the kind of company that can get away with a minimal amount of information from the client, I would highly recommend that you go for it!

Are you hooking your customer with the right content?

We recently relooked at our entire website and made some very drastic changes. Firstly, we refined the content into simple, valuable information. Our mantra shifted into empowering the customer to become savvy financial gurus and our copy had to reflect that.

We simplified the entire site from the landing page to forms. We took away any redundant information, unnecessary buttons, and unworthy text. Our landing page now gives three options. We can call you, you can do an online quote, or you can go through to our blog that is packed full of helpful and useful information.

With this removal of any other options, any visitors who are not potential clients have no reason to stay on our site, or, they can simply be converted into clients as they have nowhere else to go.

Your customer is your success!

Knowing your customer, from head to toe is a lot of hard, time-consuming work. There is a lot of research involved and time spent creating the right profiles and groups for you to market to.

Ultimately, however, the hard work starts paying off as your conversion rates start skyrocketing. AB Testing will be your friend throughout the whole process, and surveys and questionnaires will assist you to hear the voice of your target audience.

Do not be afraid of negative feedback, that can only grow you, so make sure you allow your customer to be as honest as possible for the best feedback.

]]>How the Internet of Things is Transforming Customer Experiencehttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/internet-of-things-customer-experience/
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 11:00:28 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=253412The IoT (Internet of Things) is one of the most popular phrases in the tech industry at the moment. The technology is rapidly expanding and so are the number of devices. In fact, IHS Markit expects that by 2030, 125 billion devices could be connected via the IoT.

So what exactly is the IoT? It’s a network of devices that are connected to each other via the internet. This allows them to communicate with each other and exchange data. The rapid growth of the IoT is changing the marketing landscape as well. Many brands and marketers are reconsidering their strategies because of it. Let’s take a look at how the IoT can help you improve customer experience.

The IoT (Internet of Things) is one of the most popular phrases in the tech industry at the moment. The technology is rapidly expanding and so are the number of devices. In fact, IHS Markit expects that by 2030, 125 billion devices could be connected via the IoT.

So what exactly is the IoT? It’s a network of devices that are connected to each other via the internet. This allows them to communicate with each other and exchange data. The devices don’t need to be the traditional internet-enabled ones like laptops and mobiles. It’s possible to connect different home appliances to the internet as well.

The rapid growth of the IoT is changing the marketing landscape as well. Many brands and marketers are reconsidering their strategies because of it. By incorporating the IoT, it is possible to not just improve sales but even enhance customer experience.

But the IoT is not limited to the B2C segment. It can help improve customer experience in the B2B market as well. Let’s take a look at how the IoT can help you improve customer experience.

#1. Provide real-time, accurate information

B2B companies can benefit from the IoT and can enrich the customer experience by providing accurate, real-time information. It is often a hassle to track products during deliveries. Customers have to continuously wait for the product with long delivery times and delays.

You can place sensors in the equipment or the vehicles carrying them. This will enable you to give real-time updates to the customers regarding the whereabouts of their products. This will make the whole transportation process hassle-free for you and your customers. It also improves the overall customer experience as they don’t have to keep calling you up for an update.

There’s so much more that businesses can do using the IoT. You can place sensors on products to manage inventory levels automatically.

Companies like Dynisco have been able to reduce the cost of maintaining excess inventory using an IoT inventory management system. They automated the process of automating inventory and supplier data, which resulted in a 40% reduction of active inventory across all facilities.

You’ll be able to monitor the usage of your customers and send reminders to them to place new orders when necessary. This can save customers a lot of trouble.

Or you can follow the lead of ThyssenKrupp Elevator in using real-time data to provide an IoT-based predictive maintenance solution. They gather real-time data from sensors and use the information to anticipate maintenance and repair needs even before a breakdown occurs.

As a B2B company, strengthening your IoT infrastructure will enable you to provide better service. Platforms like Cloud Management Suite can improve your IoT management process and optimize the service you provide to your clients. Using this solution, you can patch various devices, manage inventory, remotely control inventory, and more.

You can even remotely access your clients’ desktops from anywhere. With the support of Windows, Mac and Linux, you can be assured that it can be installed on all of your computers and those of your clients.

#2. Optimize usage of product

The IoT allows you to collect loads of data. This data collection can help you optimize your products. You can improve the overall value of a product based on the data you get about its usage.

You can use your IoT data to detect the performance of your products. Based on this, you can find potential issues and build better products. You can even use it to alert your customers about the performance and identify when maintenance may be required.

This can help you optimize the operations of the product which, in turn, helps your customers. It improves their performance and also strengthens your relationships with them.

For example, Rolls-Royce uses the IoT in their engines for commercial aircraft. They collect the data from their engines and use it to improvise maintenance operations. They find out about the performance of their engines and then pass on the relevant information to their customers.

This helps them schedule maintenance operations on time. It also saves their customers valuable time and money and strengthens their relationships with them.

#3. Send personalized cmmunication

You can use the IoT to enrich your communication with customers too. The sensors that your products have can feed data back to you regarding their usage patterns. You can use this data to your advantage to send across personalized communication to your customers.

You can instruct your sales and marketing teams to come up with relevant, personalized messages based on the data. For instance, if a customer isn’t utilizing all of the features of your product, you could highlight other features.

This email could consist of tips and methodologies for using the other features of the product. You can even use this data to find out which features of your product your customers are using the most.

Based on this data, you can find out the interests of your customers. You’ll then be able to suggest other products and services to them which are on similar or complementary. This can improve customer experience as they’ll feel that your brand is taking care of their needs.

Be transparent and inform them that you are using their usage data to optimize your products. Many customers will be happy as this enriches their overall experience.

A great way of accomplishing this task is by using CRM software like Salesmate. Not only does it help you automate the emailing process, but it also helps improve your overall sales and relationship management.

Salesmate allows you to easily capture leads from your website and assign them to your sales department. It even automatically assigns tasks and sends out follow-up emails. You can even create custom workflows and get valuable insights into your sales. Such features can help you deliver a customized and personalized experience to your customers.

#4. Develop new products

The data that you’ve gathered from the usage of your products can be used to develop new products. You can figure out what part of your products can be improved upon and then pass on this information to your product development team.

For example, Cummins makes engines that have sensors in them, which feed data about their performance. They then use this data to improve their engine designs and detect any flaws in the existing designs.

This way, they can further optimize the performance and reliability of their products. This helps them come up with better products. If the changes are just in the configuration, they can send the changes to the engine directly through the IoT. This ensures that the customers always have the best possible updated configurations of the product.

By using the IoT to make product improvements, you can significantly improve customer satisfaction. This tremendously impacts your relationships with them. Such added services can help you retain your customers longer.

#5. The IoT and e-commerce

Just like how you can provide real-time, accurate information in the B2B industry, you can do so in e-commerce too. You can keep your customers updated about the location of their products once they’ve ordered them. This gives them an idea of when they’ll be receiving the products at their homes. So they’ll be able to prepare for the arrival of their package by being at home or arranging for someone to receive it.

You can even use it to give them personalized offers and show them customized content. Based on their habits and how they behave, you can understand their requirements better. You’ll be able to use this data of their preferences to modify your advertising campaigns.

You can market your products to the customers at the exact time that they require it. These “in the moment” offers are more relevant to the customers, meaning they’re more likely to convert. This will ensure that you can get a better ROI on your marketing.

You can even offer them a discount when you show them the offer. This improves the customer’s experience as well. They will be happy with your brand when they get their required product at a discounted rate.

For example, Sephora uses personalized emails to drive their sales. They figure out how much time their customers take to use their products. When the product is just about to run out, they send across a personalized email with a reminder. This prompts the customer to click on the email and purchase the product. It even makes the buying process very convenient for the customer.

Improving customers’ overall experience

The IoT helps you improve your relationships with customers by improving their overall experience. You can easily detect the need for maintenance, develop better products, send a personalized communication, and more. The IoT can also help e-commerce businesses to flourish and improve their sales.

What are your views on the applications of the IoT? Let us know in the comments section below. And let us know if you have any questions as well. We’ll be glad to answer them for you.

]]>This Is How You Save On Customer Supporthttps://www.livechatinc.com/blog/save-on-customer-support/
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 08:37:41 +0000https://www.livechatinc.com/?p=256840In a world where competition can swallow your business whole if you’re not looking, keeping your customer happy has to be priority #1. But keeping your customer happy does not always mean spending more than you can afford on customer service.
However, offering excellent customer service does not mean burning a huge hole in your pockets. Smart businesses can go all out for their customers without suffering a big dent in their balance sheets. Here are some frugal habits of companies that offer world class customer service.

The last decade has been defined by the customer becoming the center of nearly every business initiative. From becoming “friends” with customers via social media to getting inside their pockets via smartphone apps to offering customer support 24 x 7 x 365, businesses have pulled no stops at pleasing the customer in the race for market domination.

This intense customer focus has paid off for those who’ve gotten their customer experience just right. Research from American Express shows that 70% of customers are willing to pay a premium to do business with a company that offers great customer service. On the other hand, poor customer service can cost companies dear. Forbes Magazine reports that businesses are losing $75 billion per year due to poor customer service.

So we agree that extraordinary customer service is expected, andnot exceptional anymore.

However, offering excellent customer service does not mean burning a huge hole in your pockets. Smart businesses can go all out for their customers without suffering a big dent in their balance sheets. Here are some frugal habits of companies that offer world class customer service.

Make Your Website Your Customer Service Hub

Let’s say a customer has a problem with your product. They’re seething. That’s when they need an immediate, empathetic response.

And what do they get?

The best customer service is when the customer can help themselves. In an ideal scenario, they don’t need to listen to a forty-minute flute solo.

Make it easy for your customers to:

Spot trouble.

Understand the cause.

Go straight to a page that describes the exact solution. Only the exact solution.

In addition to that, give them:

A chat window at the bottom of every page on the site (that doesn’t irritatingly pop up and spit out its own version of “Your call is important to us.”),

a support email address displayed prominently,

a dedicated helpdesk section on the site that prequalifies problems and resolves them with lightning speed and human words.

Here’s an example: the world’s favorite marketplace – Amazon – has perfected this customer support “workflow.”

Although I don’t remember the last time I needed help with an Amazon purchase, thanks to its carefully designed user flows and idiot-proof website architecture. However, for those of us that do stumble upon the rare hiccup on Amazon, there’s help available at hand for every possible problem.

Besides quick links in the footer, Amazon has a dedicated “Help” page that has detailed answers to every kind of shopping-related question you might encounter. To make matters easier for users, they offer a built-in search engine where you can type in your problem and you’ll get answers specifically for your query.

Amazon being Amazon, it’s even launched its own browser extension called Amazon Assistant (not to be confused with Alexa) that helps users manage their orders quickly, compare products, get notified about deals on products they care about, and more.

Let Your Content Do All the Talking

Not many people make the connection to customer service when you talk to them about content marketing. Good content is not just a formidable marketing tool, it’s also a great starting point for sorting out customers’ problems with your product.

Content may be of many different types – blog posts, videos, white papers, case studies, and more. While each content type has its pros and cons, the simplest type of content to create (and consume!) is definitely the blog post.

What do your blog posts do? Do they spread your brand message? Are they a vehicle for sharing your personal insights and experiences? Are they written by industry professionals? Do they help you sell your products?

The beauty of blog posts is that they can be as flexible as you want them to be. For those who’re still taking baby steps in blogging – just about half of the top 500 companies run blogs – wondering about the technical nitty gritty, here’s a simple step-by-step guide to starting your very own blog.

Before you actually set out on your corporate blogging journey, you need to define the style and voice that will eventually set the tone for your brand voice. Ask yourself the following questions:

Will your blog be professional and technical or laid back and informal?

Are your customers looking for educational information or an interesting spin on ideas?

Will your content state an opinion on “controversial” topics or remain neutral?

Additionally, it may help to make a visual representation of the kind of language and framework that your content will embrace as well as steer away from, for a clearer, enduring projection of your brand voice.

When it comes to the theme of your blog, you’d do well to focus on “3E” content. 3E content seeks to build your authority and thought leadership in your space via content that provides education, entertainment, or experience. By focusing on one or more of these classes, you’ll be able to influence audience perception and build long-term brand recognition on the back of your content.

I love how survey management company SurveyMonkey offers users a combination of product news, tips and tricks, industry news, statistics, company culture, and employee news and more on its blog:

From answering questions that may be lurking in the back of a customer’s mind to germinating new ideas that will help the customer’s business, the blog straddles the gamut of all a corporate blog should be, with consummate ease.

Minimize Calls to Customer Service – Offer Alternatives

The contact center or call center is usually the most expensive cog in the customer service wheel for most companies. Call centers need to be manned by well-trained, friendly, and knowledgeable executives to satisfy and pacify customers.

However, such customer care executives come with a stiff price tag that few companies can afford. In a bid to control costs, many companies resort to hiring much fewer representatives than they really need. The result? Angry customers who are kept waiting for their turn on the customer service number, leading to a poor customer experience and potentially lost sales.

Why fall into such a trap? No one ever said that having a customer care number was a necessity to run a business! In fact, there are some very successful businesses that are thriving despite not having a call center that takes customer calls.

Email marketing leader MailChimp is one such example. MailChimp notoriously (famously?) doesn’t have a customer care number. Instead, it takes a customer through a series of self-help steps to resolve their problems without human intervention as far as possible.

For customers who still have queries their exhaustive help section, MailChimp offers extremely responsive email support that offers replies within 24 hours. Paid customers of MailChimp get the option of live chat support from representatives with not just inside-out knowledge of the platform, but also a real sense of humor!

Plugins like LiveChat are a great option to eliminate the cost of voice-based customer care, without sacrificing real-time problem resolution capabilities.

Quality Over Speed

Blasphemy! “Never keep the customer waiting” is the mantra on which most customer service teams operate today. Customer service representatives are incentivized to close as many queries as possible in a day and the best performer is frequently judged based on their speed of customer service.

However, research paints a very different picture of customer expectations. Data from RightNow Technologies showed that customers who stopped doing business with a company due to poor customer service cited rude or inefficient staff as the biggest reason for their decision to discontinue their business. Long wait times didfactor in, but speed of service was a distant second to the quality of service these customers were offered.

William J. McEwen, in his book Married To The Brand, shows that customers are more engaged and satisfied when they receive empathetic support from the support department versus quick service that fails to meet their standards.

While on the topic of indulgent customer service, I would be remiss to not mention customer service leader Zappos. Zappos customer services representatives are famous for not letting call timings or the need for speed get in the way of helping out a customer. In fact, a Zappos employee beat the company’s own record for longest ever customer service call with a conversation that lasted 10 hours and 43 minutes!

You Scratch My Back, I Scratch Yours

In a world where competition can swallow your business whole if you’re not looking, keeping your customer happy has to be priority #1. But keeping your customer happy does not always mean spending more than you can afford on customer service.

All it takes is a little bit of creativity (and a lot of inspiration) to offer your customer a fabulous experience that will have them coming back over and over again!